Of Crushes And Wishes
by J.J. Blue
Summary: 1991. A 'stranger' is wandering in Tokyo with the sole goal to fulfil his Wish and he'll need to involve Subaru and Seishiro in order to do so... (SxS) [Betaed]


**Title: "Of Crushes And Wishes"**  
**Author: J.J.**  
**Warning:** It's an AU **BASED ON THE MANGA**. It contains some Japanese words (the Dictionary is at the bottom), a bit of sappiness...  
**Notes:** This work is based on the manga. There's a tiny reference to a character from **"Tsubasa RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE"** and **"xxx HOLiC"** but it's not necessary to know them to understand the fic.  
**Warning over notes:** This fic has notes. You will find them at the bottom. Each time you see a number between brackets it means there's a note connected to the word/sentence that preceded it. However I suggest you to read the notes **_AFTER_** you finished the fic unless the word/sentence connected to the note is really troublesome for you to understand. Anyway the fic should be still understandable without the notes. Notes are merely extra explanations for who wants to know more.  
**Disclaimer:**  
**"Tokyo Babylon"**, **"X"**, **"Tsubasa RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE"** and **"xxx HOLiC"** belong to Clamp. I'm merely using their characters because I love them... especially Seishiro and Subaru...  
Ehy, Do I own something here? Oh yes, I own the plot and a sensible heart which would surely break if you give me harsh reviews... so please be honest but nice ok?  
**Thanks:** To **Becca** for betaing this! Thank you a lot!  
**Summary:** _1991. A 'stranger' is wandering in Tokyo with the sole goal to fulfil his Wish and he'll need to involve Subaru and Seishiro in order to do so..._

* * *

**_"I would die for you  
I would kill for you  
I will steal for you  
I'd do time for you  
I would wait for you  
I'd make room for you  
I'd sail ships for you  
To be close to you  
To be a part of you  
'Cause I believe in you  
I believe in you  
I would die for you..."  
(Garbage - "#1 Crush")_**

* * *

**1991 - Tokyo, Ueno Park**

He was late. The sun had disappeared from the horizon a while ago and Hokuto-chan was probably waiting for him at home, worried. He was running as fast as he could, holding his black hat with his left gloved hand. He never liked to give Hokuto-chan reason to worry about him. Ueno Park was completely deserted, the sound of his boots hitting the sakura petal covered ground as he ran the only sound he could hear. In another moment he would have mused about how beautiful and surreal the place was, sakura petals completely covering the ground like a carpet and, at the same time, falling gently over him like snowflakes. Right then he could only think he was late. His running met an abrupt halt as a voice asked him:

"Are you Sumeragi Subaru-san?"

The voice was odd. It was a familiar sound that seemingly whispered directly into his head and yet was echoing all around him, filling the silence and freezing him on the spot. The tone had been gentle, polite, and yet with an odd empty quality, like an extending void. Somehow it reminded Subaru of the gulping sound from when he threw a rock in a pond creating soundless circles that moved the smooth surface of the water for some seconds, circles expanding and then... disappearing as if nothing had even happened.

He turned and saw at his right the silhouette of a man leaning against a Sakura tree.

The man wasn't facing him, his head was lowered and his arms were crossed over his chest. He was still, so still he didn't even seem alive but Subaru just knew that man had been the one who spoke to him.

"Who... who are you?" he asked hesitantly. A side of him knew the answer, a side of him knew perfectly who was that dark figure under the Sakura tree. A side of him was almost screaming at him to leave as fast as he could, to run for his life. Yet his feet were almost chained to the ground, refusing to move. As dangerous as it could be, he had to be there, to listen the one who had stopped him and it was disconcerting to know that he was doing it not for the stranger, who somehow wasn't a stranger, but for himself. He knew he would regret leaving. He would regret it forever. He would never forgive himself if he left.

The one under the Sakura moved slowly, gracefully, breaking his stillness and _'taking life'_ in front of Subaru's eyes, head raising and turning toward him and arms uncrossing. He was doing nothing extraordinary and yet it looked like as if darkness had taken a life of his own in his body. Subaru tried to tell himself it was because the thin yet slender form in front of him was dressed completely in black, black boot, black pants, black coat fluttering in the wind, black shirt, black gloves, black sunglasses, pretty weird in the dim light that brightened the park in the evening, and short dark hair.

In all that blackness the paleness of his skin was almost unnatural, unreal.

"My name doesn't matter anymore," he replied softly and again Subaru had the impression that something was... wrong in his tone, surreal, as if they were not on the solid ground but deep under the water. "I'm here to ask you a question and, depending on how you will answer, your destiny and the one of the ones you care about will change or not."

There was a pause of silence as Subaru digested the information. Something important was going on right in front of him, something vital and he was the key for it. A cold determination settled in the pit of his stomach and he straightened his back, turning to fully face the other, clenching his fists. This was important. This was the most important thing happened to him and he wasn't going to fail. Too much was at stake. He just knew it even if he had no idea how he knew it.

"Name it," he said firmly. A ghost of a smile passed over the other's lips and Subaru could almost felt the other's emotions, foreign emotions and yet not foreign, as if they were one and the same, then the man spoke and everything became clear.

* * *

He was running. Running through Ueno Park searching for his target. He was frowning as he was trying to understand what had happened, what that odd disturbance had been, why he couldn't sense Subaru-kun's presence anymore. It bugged him not being able to sense the boy anymore. Subaru-kun was his prey and he had sworn to protect him from others as long as his game was on. If something should happen to Subaru-kun it would mean he had failed, lost in a task he had swore to accomplish and that wasn't an option. He didn't fail. The Sakurazukamori couldn't fail. That was why he was running toward the last place he had perceived the boy's presence. The middle of Ueno Park.(1)

It was oddly ironic in a fashion.

The Sakurazukamori had lost track of his prey in the middle of Sakura trees.

He reached the place before he had expected it and yet it had seemed an impossibly long time. He had known before seeing it what was waiting him and yet, now that he was facing it, he couldn't help but finding it impossible, surreal, like some sort of odd dream.

In a clearance barely lit by a lamp pole, on a sakura petal covered ground laid on his stomach Sumeragi Subaru-kun, age sixteen, Onmyouji, Sumeragi no Chou and designed prey of the Sakurazukamori. The boy seemed asleep, his head turned to the side and a calm, happy expression on his face, an arm gracefully curled next to it. He was still wearing the same clothes Seishiro remembered him wearing that day, those black boots, the tight pants, the red jacket and the hat that now rested not too close from the boy, allowing the gentle breeze to brush the boy's dark hair undisturbed. He was tempted to kneel near him, shake him gently and see that sleeping beauty woke up, to see sleepy and yet bright green eyes turn on him with wonderment and then lower in embarrassment as a blush would spread on Subaru-kun's pale skin. He was tempted but he knew it would have been foolish. He knew what that crimson liquid that was spreading under Subaru-kun's form was, he knew what that tear on the back of the boy's jacket, from which more crimson essence had dripped meant, he knew what that smell that permeated the air was. He knew.

The beautiful Sumeragi no Chou's blood was being wasted over the ground, feeding Sakura trees that couldn't appreciate its beauty and purity and he could do nothing else but stare, feeling empty, as if a void had swallowed everything inside him.

Subaru-kun was dead, killed by an unknown hand.

His prey had been ripped away from him before he had the chance to end his game.

Voices echoed in his head straight from a corner of his memory, young voices that knew nothing of the future that was waiting for them, the voices of a teenager and a child.

* * *

_'Do you know? Bodies are buried under this Sakura tree.' _

_'Bodies?' _

_'This tree has such pretty flowers every year thanks to the bodies beneath its roots. The real Sakura tree's blossoms are supposed to be white like snow. But why are these flowers slightly pink? Do you know? Because they're nourished on the blood of the body found beneath it.' _

_'But the people who are under the Sakura tree would suffer, won't they?'_

* * *

The question was replayed in his mind in an almost endless litany as he pondered over it, as he never had before.

_'Are you suffering now, Subaru-kun? Are you suffering? And who will care for your pain? You were so ready to care for the pain of nameless men, nameless victims of the Sakurazukamori, beings who were designated to be a threat for Japan from some YumeMi and so had to be forcefully removed from this plan of existence, being who had been Sakurazukamori and had to leave their position and this life, but who will care for your pain? Who will cry for you, young, foolish, too caring Subaru-kun?'_(2)

He stood there, frozen, unable to find an answer. His game had been ripped away from him and not just that. He would never have an answer, he would never discover if he too could feel something for a human being. He would never fulfil his mother's prediction, the one that said that he would be killed by the person he loved the most.

He was an emotional void and he was alone. He cared for no one and no one cared for him.

Subaru-kun, the only one who had been able to see him, to find him on that day so many years ago was lying there, dead, abandoned on the ground like a broken doll and still so beautiful, innocent, and pure he couldn't believe the boy was no more.

What was he supposed to do now? Should he feel something for the boy's dead? Pain, regret, pity, sadness, boredom, indignation, anger, something? Why couldn't he? Was he really so unable to perceive others as living being that not even Sumeragi Subaru-kun's death could shook him out from his indifference? No, not indifference, it was something more, his mind informed him, strangely cold and rational, more cold and rational than he could remember it ever being. He wasn't feeling a thing, not even the cold he should feel due to the fact he forgot to take his coat and he knew his expensive suit just wasn't warm enough to shield him from it. He couldn't feel a damn thing. He was sure that, had someone stabbed him right in his chest like they had done with Subaru-kun, he wouldn't have noticed it. He was feeling nothing. He was a void, a rock, an empty shell. He wasn't even sure if he was still alive.

"Are you done watching?" a voice that was familiar and yet wasn't asked him, jolting him out of his internal contemplation. He turned and his gaze caught the flicker of a lighter that was currently being used to light a cigarette that a stranger was holding in his lips. The stranger was leaning against a Sakura, almost fusing with it, as his figure, clad completely in black, seemed nothing more than an extension of the tree's shadow.

He studied the man, strangely fascinated. He was familiar and yet he was a complete stranger. He looked about his age and yet older as if he had seen too many things in too short a time. He was dressed completely in black as if he wanted to become one with the darkness. His movements were smooth and graceful and yet the stranger seemed to posses an internal stillness that made him look as if he was void of life, a doll, a mere puppet with no will of his own. He was wearing a black coat, so very similar to the one Seishiro favoured, it could as well be the same and that now was hugging the stranger's thin frame, fluttering gracefully in the gentle breeze. His eyes were hidden by dark glasses, glasses it was completely improper to wear in such a dim light, glasses that hid the stranger's gaze like a shield behind which he could refuge.

Seishiro knew he should know the stranger, he was sure he had already touched that pale skin, those slim shoulders, those graceful hands that seemed to be born to trace Ketsu-in patterns.

He knew it and yet he also knew the young man in front of him was nothing more than a stranger to him. One he should know and yet didn't. Odd, but he just couldn't bring himself to care.

"You came too late, you know. Anyway it had been surprising to see you. I've been wondering for a long while if you would show up at all," the stranger continued, his casual tone sounding wrong to Seishiro's ears as a poorly played, differently rearranged melody he had known and liked in the past and couldn't remember or recognize right then.

"Who are you?" he asked, his eyes narrowing. The stranger was a threat, he knew that and yet he couldn't bring himself to believe he would try to attack him. Those gloved hands would never turn against him. The unknown man exhaled slowly, allowing a trail of smoke to rise gracefully in the air than turned toward him.

"Does it matter?" he asked in an almost curious tone, his head slightly inclined to the side as if in wonderment.

"No, it doesn't," Seishiro replied. It doesn't and yet for some unfathomable reason Seishiro knew it should, only he felt too numb to care about what his instinct was suggesting to him.

"I supposed so," the stranger agreed as his gaze turned on Subaru-kun's motionless corpse. Subaru-kun shouldn't have been motionless. In the quiet, shy boy there had always been a hidden energy that pushed him to move, even if minimally and cautiously so to not bother others. It might have been his eyes that darted around observing everything, or the fact he leaned his weight from a feet to the other as if he felt his presence could disturb the ground on which he stood, or the way he clenched and unclenched his hands as if he desperately wanted to grasp something but hesitated in doing so, or even in the way his chest moved when he breathed, gently yet deeply as if he wanted to savour each inch of air. Seishiro couldn't remember a moment in which he saw Subaru-kun so perfectly still. His life energy had always been too strong in him to allow that perfect stillness that was only proper of death, but after all Subaru-kun was dead and, as unrealistic as it could seem, it was only proper for him to be still in his death. His death... he should have been the one who would have put an end to the boy's existence and instead that had been stolen from him. A stranger had murdered Subaru-kun; the boy had died alone due to unknown hands.

"Poetic, isn't it? His blood is soaking this ground, feeding the Sakura, making it even more beautiful as the legend said. Something must always be sacrificed in order to allow something else to live," the stranger remarked absently as if talking about abstract things and not about Subaru-kun's death. Seishiro knew the legend. Being the Sakurazukamori he knew it fairly well. He had mentioned it to Subaru-kun long ago, in his Maboroshi.(3)

_'But the people who are under the Sakura tree would suffer, won't they?'_

"Why?" he asked, his eyes still staring at the still form on the ground. Why did the stranger murder Subaru-kun? Why murder Subaru-kun? Why stealing his prey from him? Why stealing his only game, his only amusement, his only playmate from him? Why hadn't he been able to prevent it? Why were they even there, talking about Subaru-kun's death as others would talk about the weather? Why couldn't that beautiful boy's death involve them emotionally? Were they ones of the same species, emotionless creatures for whom life and death did not matter?

"Why not him?" the other asked with a shrug as he walked toward Subaru-kun with graceful yet silent long strides. "He was tainted, impure." He nudged Subaru-kun's body with his toe and then kicked it, causing him to turn on his back, revealing the gaping wound on the boy's chest. Seishiro didn't realize he had winced when the other had kicked Subaru-kun, he only knew he had thought that the other had no right to kick the boy, that he shouldn't dare to touch him, not even with a finger, no matter if Subaru-kun was dead. He had owned Subaru-kun for so long... why did this stranger have to steal him? Why take away from him his only pastime?

"This foolish boy had been marked by the Sakurazukamori," the stranger continued, kneeling and roughly ripping away one of Subaru-kun's gloves, revealing the inverted star that marked Subaru-kun's hand. He raised the lifeless hand and stroked the star gently, almost lovingly, his action contrasting sharply with the previous carelessness with which he had dealt with Subaru-kun's body and Seishiro felt a pang of annoyance.

That star was his mark, that hand that bore it belonged to him, that boy the stranger was handling with so little care should have been his to...

"He was unfitting to be the Sumeragi no Chou," the stranger continued as he tossed away Subaru-kun's hand carelessly, as if he had grown bored by it, and stood again. "He was unfitting to be a Ten no Ryu. He was unfitting to live. Who will feel pain for his demise? You?" he asked almost mockingly, tilting his head. He was closer now and Seishiro could see bloody fingertips on the cigarette he was smoking. Bloody fingertips... Subaru-kun's blood on a cheap cigarette. The boy's life essence trapped in something so low...

"So you murdered him," he said coldly. Something was rising inside him, something strong, raw and unstoppable like a tornado, like a Tsunami, like a hurricane, something for which he had no name and that he had never felt before.

"So I murdered him. Who will care anyway? Everyone will say the Sakurazukamori had finished the work he had started long ago. The boy should never have reached this age anyway."

"**_You_** murdered **_him_**," Seishiro repeated again accusingly. This man had stolen his prey from him. This man had stolen Subaru-kun from him. This man...

"Yes, I murdered him, so?" the other asked as he dropped unceremoniously the cigarette stained with Subaru-kun's blood on the ground, crushed it with his boot and then walked closer to him. "So? What are you going to do?" he asked tauntingly. "What are you going to do?" he repeated as he was now at arm length from Seishiro. "Are you going to do something?"

_'Are you going to do something Sakurazuka Seishiro-san, Sakurazukamori?'_

Seishiro could see his reflection staring at himself in the man's glasses. They were around the same age but the stranger was smaller, shorter, thinner, paler, and emptier than him. Familiar and yet unknown. A stranger. A stranger who smelled of Sakura, cheap cigarettes and blood. Subaru-kun's blood. A stranger who had stolen from him Subaru-kun. His head was spinning and he felt like falling.

What was he going to do? What was he going to do?

What had he done, he asked to himself as he felt his arm going through the other man's body with a sickening sound that seemed so amazingly loud in his ears and yet had been nothing noticeable but he was so empty inside that even the smallest noise echoed like a gunshot.

The other hadn't tried to defend himself, had just waited for him to do it and now was gripping Seishiro's jacket as his knees were bending as strength was leaving him. The man's head was lowered and Seishiro registered a tiny thump as the man's glasses fell on the ground but he just couldn't bring to care. This man would die and he wouldn't care. He had never cared for human beings and that odd sensation that had pushed him to strike the man with all his strength was leaving him so quickly, like air would leave a balloon that had a hole in it. Soon he would be empty again. Alone, an emotional void that couldn't be filled. He closed his eyes wishing that darkness and silence could swallow him.

He didn't get his wish.

A whisper broke his quiet, causing his whole being to tense.

"Sei... shi... ro... -san..." the other called and something inside him jumped in recognition. That voice, that tone, that way to say his name... only a person could call him like that... but the voice was wrong, it was older, deeper than it was supposed to be and this man, this man... he was older, he couldn't be... no he couldn't be... not with Subaru-kun's body laying in front of him... but he just knew... he could swear...

"Subaru... -kun?"

Was it a Maboroshi? A dream? Was it? Or was he going insane? Hallucinating? How could this man be Subaru-kun, his Subaru-kun? How?

The other made a strangled sound that could have been an amused laugh and raised his head. Two mismatched eyes stared at him, the right one of the same golden colour of his own eyes while the left one of the same emerald green that characterized Subaru-kun's ones, as a weak, pained and yet still gentle smile, a smile that could only belong to his Subaru-kun, graced the man's lips.

"How?" he repeated.

"It was... my... Wish..." the man forced himself to say in a tone that wasn't empty anymore but gentle and kind, as Subaru-kun's tone had always been.

"Your... wish?" Seishiro repeated. How was this supposed to make sense?

"You... in 1999... in 1999... I killed you... I didn't mean... I didn't want it... I thought... if I could go back in time... to erase Sumeragi Subaru from this world... you would live..." Seishiro blinked in confusion. Subaru-kun came in the past to kill his younger self so he would live? Why should he? Why?

"But... but in a month..." In a month the bet was supposed to end and one of them was supposed to die. Preferably Subaru-kun. How could they both have been alive in 1999? Subaru-kun understood his unspoken question.

"Hokuto-chan... you killed... Hokuto-chan... in my place..."

He did what? And Subaru-kun still...

"I wanted... I wanted to hate you... I couldn't... you said you didn't care about me, that you wanted me dead... I Wished to die by your hands... you died... I Wished to save you... to die in your place..."

To save him? To save **_him_**? The Sakurazukamori? The man that had killed... well that was going to kill his sister? The man who had lied to him? Didn't Subaru-kun realize what was he doing? What was he throwing away for someone like him?

"He... he agreed with me too," Subaru-kun said motioning to the other Subaru-kun who was lying forgotten on the ground. "He said... no matter what... your life was worth saving... he said he loved you... he said he was sorry... he realized it only when... when he had to choose... between his life... and yours..."

Subaru-kun... his young, naïve Subaru-kun had loved him? Loved him? Why? How?

Subaru-kun... this older, wiser Subaru-kun still loved him? Loved him? Why? How?

"He didn't love me," he stated shaking his head. "He only saw a mask, an illusion. He couldn't possibly love the Sakurazukamori... No one can..."

"Doesn't matter... doesn't matter you're... the Sakurazukamori... doesn't matter... you don't... care about me... I can't bear to... live... to live without you... Don't make me... Seishiro-san... please..."

Why was Subaru-kun doing this? Why throwing his life away like a meaningless object just to save him?

"Subaru-kun... that's so foolish of you... what would Hokuto-chan say?"

"She'll live... you... only you matter... and I'm glad... glad you never felt... something... for me... so... now... you won't feel... the pain... of being... left back... Sei... shi... ro... -san... I... really... loved you..."

Subaru-kun's head rolled lifelessly against his chest. Seishiro stared at him in confusion. He didn't understand. He didn't understand. The game... his game had met an abrupt halt and he didn't understand. He... he... he stared at the older Subaru-kun, the one who was still laying in his arms, still smiling like a happy sleeping child. He turned his gaze on the other Subaru-kun, the one who was lying abandoned on the ground. He too was smiling like a happy child. They... they were dead and they were smiling because they had died for him? Why? Why?

Confusion filled him and, with it, another sensation, a feeling for which he had no name. He clung to the Subaru-kun in his arms, shaking him and calling him, refusing to believe the game had end... like that. No. No, it wasn't true, his game wasn't ended yet. No. Subaru-kun wasn't dead; he couldn't die in that stupid way. He wasn't allowed to die without his permission. His game... his playmate... he couldn't lose... his game... his playmate... but Subaru-kun wasn't answering him... the game... he'd lost... he'd lost so poorly and now he'd to pay penance... and it wasn't even the one he expected... instead than dying... living... living... living... alone, always alone, without his playmate... his only playmate... Subaru-kun... Subaru-kun... Subaru-kun!

* * *

Seishiro awoke abruptly and bolted up, panting and clenching the covers in his fists, drenched in sweat.

A nightmare. A mere nightmare. A horrible nightmare.

He swallowed and tried to force his mind to go back to it. Whoever held a special spiritual power since birth like Subaru-kun or himself could have dreams that predicted the future. He dreamt rarely but that wasn't an excuse to overlook the possibility of a warning toward a future to come yet, when he tried to go back to what he dreamt, his mind almost screamed, refusing to relive those memories. He frowned in annoyance at the... dread? No, the Sakurazukamori couldn't possibly feel dread... the... reluctance he had felt at the mere thought to think back to his dream and concentrated, trying again but the memories now were dimmed, blurred, leaving him only with the feeling of an incoming danger, a threat toward Subaru-kun's life and the sensation that, should he not be able to protect the boy, he would regret it for the rest of his life.

What a silly thing.

As if he could care about Subaru-kun... As if...

He stood and went to the window. He summoned his Shiki and sent it to check on Subaru-kun's conditions. The bird's report was satisfying; the boy was quietly sleeping in his bed. So why was he still so... unnerved? What had happened in his dream that had messed him up so abnormally? What did he see that had disturbed him so much? It had never happened before and it wasn't normal. It wasn't normal for him to worry, to care to this extent about a stupid dream. Nothing was worth his regret, his worry; the world was nothing more than a giant amusement park for him. Yet...

He leaned his forehead against the window and closed his eyes.

"Subaru-kun..." he murmured tiredly, wishing he had an answer for his questions.

He opened his eyes slowly, planning to get back to bed and forget that odd, foreign mood that had possessed him but, before doing so, he gave a lazy glance at the street under him. His gaze caught the flicker of a lighter and a glimpse of recognition flashed in his mind but before he could pinpoint it, it was gone and so were the lighter and its owner. No matter how carefully he stared at the street, there were just too many people out there for him to find the one he was looking for.

And after all... it had been only a dream, hadn't it, he told himself as he forced himself to go back to his bed. He should change. He should take a shower. He should... He should do many things but the only one he was able to was sitting on the bed thinking, while his Shiki kept Subaru-kun under surveillance.

* * *

Seishiro was unaware of the gaze that a _'stranger'_ was keeping fixed on his window from the street below his apartment. The _'stranger'_ removed for a moment his dark sunglasses to reveal a pair of mismatched eyes and smiled bitterly at the window as he remembered what the Witch had told him.

_'For everything you receive, you have to pay the equal back. You can't get more or give more. Can't be more or less. Must be equal.'_(4)

Equal. A life for a life. An existence for an existence. It was fair. It was right. It sounded like a good deal. It was what he Wished.

"Seishiro-san... I'm here... and this time my Wish will be fulfilled..." he said slowly before putting his sunglasses on again, then he lost himself in the streets of Tokyo determined to pay whatever price could be needed to turn his Wish into reality.

And this time no one would be able to stop him.

* * *

Under the Tokyo Diet Building Hinoto frowned in her dream as she stared at the silent figure of the man from the future walking through Shinjuku's streets.

_'Do you want to bet on it?'_ she whispered in her mind in silent reply to his statement, quietly challenging him.

* * *

**_"Am I what you made me?  
Or am I what you'll reap?  
Am I all you dreamed of?  
Or am I just a creep?  
I wish that I could hold you (yeah yeah)  
I wish that I could hate you (uh-huh)  
I wish that I could hold you one more time,  
Just one more time...  
I still see you in my mind,  
Wish that I could have more time.  
I know that it will be just fine,  
All is well now,  
No need to cry...  
No need to cry...  
No need to cry..."  
(Drain S.T.H - "I Wish")_**

* * *

**JJ's Notes:**

1. Actually in the manga is never said if the star shaped marks Seishiro had left on Subaru can be used to get info about Subaru's well being. Seishiro said he placed them merely to recognize the boy. Subaru later said that Seishiro could have used them to track him down also. However I'll go with the popular opinion that they're a bit more useful than that.

2. The Sakurazukamori kills the people to protect Japan's well being. I'm assuming who designs who might be a danger for Japan's well being is a YumeMi... it would be fun if it was Hinoto herself...

3. Probably everyone knows this but the story Seishiro told Subaru when they met the first time is based on a Japanese legend.

4. The Witch is Hajiwara Yuuko, also known as the Dimensional Witch. It's a character of **'Tsubasa RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE'** and **'xxx HOLiC'** two manga by Clamp. She owns a shop that sells weird magic items and she helped the characters of **'Tsubasa RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE'** to travel across dimensions. Somewhere in **'xxx HOLiC'** she says she knows a young Onmyouji and his twin sister...

**JJ's Extra Notes:**  
After reading **'X'** my first project was to write a story in which Subaru-san went back to the past to fix things his own way (Beware of Subaru's plans to fix things! They're as bad as Seishiro's). However, after I read **'Illusory Tandem'** by Tanuki-dono I've realized nothing I could write could even remotely compete with this beautiful fic (you've read it, haven't you? If not go straight to read it because it's one of the best fic ever written!) so the idea was discharged. However I found myself with having a Subaru-san and a Subaru-kun wandering in my mind with the main purpose to save Seishiro-san.  
I could have ignored Subaru-kun, he's cute but too kind to make damage, but to ignore Subaru-san, who is, after all, a slightly insane Sakurazukamori looked like a Very Bad Idea.  
So I took the whole plot idea, kept it at the bare minimum and used it to write this. Consider this my way to _'exorcise'_ Subaru-san. By the way this is an One Shot. It had an open ending so of course it could be continued but has been written to be a One Shot. So far no further chapters are planned (even if I know what was supposed to happen after...).  
As for Hinoto... well, in **'X'** she's the one who plots behind the Ten no Ryu's back to get her Wish. I assume she won't be happy if Subaru-san would go back in time to mess up with the future. Plus, if I was in Subaru-san I would look forward to a chance to kill her. She sent him on Rainbow Bridge knowing what was waiting for him...  
A last note about the date... **'Tokyo Babylon'** starts in 1990 with Subaru 16 and Seishiro 25. However in Vol. 3 we are already in 1991 since Hokuto comments that 1999 will be in 8 years. I assume this means that Subaru and Seishiro didn't meet on the 1st of January and therefore the year of the bet took place half in 1990 and half in 1991.

**Dictionary:**  
**-chan:** Name ending used to express affection and familiarity or to talk with a child  
**-kun:** Young  
**-san:** "Mr." or "Mrs."  
**Ketsu-in:** "Mudra". Special ritual gestures formed by knotting the fingers in various complex patterns  
**Maboroshi:** Illusion  
**Onmyoudo:** "Way of Yin and Yang". Yin and Yang are the male and female forces underlying the movement and changes of nature. Onmyoudo is based upon the Chinese arts of astrology, divination and Taoist magic and also represents a mystical way of living in harmony with the forces of nature  
**Onmyouji:** "Person who practices Onmyoudo". Basically a magician, sorcerer, diviner and astrologer  
**Onmyoujutsu:** "Art of Yin and Yang". The ability to use Onmyoudo spells.  
**Sakura:** "Cherry Tree" or "Cherry Blossom"  
**Sakurazukamori:** "Guardian of the Cherry Blossom Burial Mound". The assassin who uses Onmyoujutsu to kill who threatens Japan  
**Sumeragi no Chou:** Sumeragi's Head  
**Ten no Ryu:** Dragon of Heaven  
**Tsunami:** Tidal Wave  
**YumeMi:** "Dreamgazer". Who can see the future in dreams

* * *

Don't grumble silently, please let me know what you're thinking of this!  
Send me your comments!


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